Mia Love, Utah’s Mormon mayor, increases GOP’s minority appeal
People stand on the main stage at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on the abbreviated first day of the Republican National Convention on August 27, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. The RNC is scheduled to convene today, but will hold its first full session tomorrow after being delayed due to Tropical Storm Isaac.
Mia Love will be speaking at the Republican National Convention.
The Mormon mayor of Saratoga Springs is currently running against Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson for Utah's 4th Congressional District, according to ABC News.
If elected in November, Love, born in Brooklyn to Haitian-American parents, would become the first black female Republican in Congress, noted NPR.
When she spoke at the Utah GOP convention in April, she captured the attention of the GOP, saying, "You can work hard. You can save, you can improve your life and the lives of your children. And one day, when you deliver your youngest child to the university, you will look her in the eye and you will say, 'You will give back,'" according to NPR.
Love was also very clear about her value to the Republican party. "Because of who I am and where I come from, I can win those votes: the independents, the moderates, the women votes," she said, according to NPR. "I can persuade them to come along with us."
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Speaking about her appearance at the RNC, Love said, "I think I'll talk about preserving the American dream," according to The Daily Herald. "I think that is what we need to get back to."
The Daily Herald said choosing Love to speak at the RNC could be an effort to show the Republican party reaching out to minorities.
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Richard Davis, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, said, "It helps the party by giving the perception that this is an open, diverse party that will be appealing to racial ethnic minorities," according to The Daily Herald. "Republicans believe that by putting Mia Love on stage in a prominent role, it is saying in the future they hope they will be able to reach out more to African-American voters."
The GOP's elite, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Speaker John Boehner and Sen. John McCain, have showed up in Utah to campaign for Love in the past month, according to NPR.
"It's a historic moment in that the first African-American woman who is a Republican becomes a member of Congress," said McCain.
Want to meet more women of the RNC? Here's a profile of Luce Vela, Puerto Rico's first lady.